Sponsor of Malala Yousafzai lecture calls on Buffalonians to engage in the fight for girls’ education

Join the movement to give a girl a chance.

By CHARLOTTE HSU

“The entire world benefits from increased access to education for girls.”

Anne Wadsworth, executive director

Girls Education Collaborative

The Buffalo-based Girls Education Collaborative (GEC) has a
message for Western New Yorkers: Malala Yousafzai, human rights
activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, is helping girls achieve
their potential every day. And so can you.

GEC is one of the sponsors for UB’s upcoming Distinguished
Speakers Series lecture by Yousafzai on Sept. 19.

Yousafzai — an outspoken advocate for the right of girls
to receive an education — was shot by the Taliban in 2012 at
the age of 15 while traveling home from school on the bus in
Pakistan. Now living in England, she has continued to campaign for
the right of every child to go to school.

That mission dovetails with the work of GEC,
which works to equip girls in developing countries to realize their
fullest potential and become catalysts for change.

A video discussing the organization’s fight for justice
will play before the lecture, showing footage of a school for girls
that GEC helped build in Tanzania.

The facility, the Immaculate Heart Secondary School for Girls,
opened in January 2017 in the village of Kitenga in northwest
Tanzania. It creates new opportunities for girls in an area where
early marriage and female genital mutilation are continuing
practices.

The GEC video will highlight how Western New Yorkers got
involved in this cause, working with the Immaculate Heart Sisters
of Africa — a group of Tanzanian nuns — to plan and
raise funds for the project. The footage will include photos of
Kitenga girls, with each snapshot held by GEC donors and
volunteers.

“One girl can make a difference — for herself, her
community and the whole world,” the video will say.
“Malala has. And so can you.”

Local residents can learn more about girls’ education by
visiting www.TheWholeGirl.world, a
website that GEC created to share information on how an education
can empower girls, leading to declining rates of child marriage,
child death and early births. Visitors also can donate and sign up
to volunteer through the site.

GEC launched in 2012, growing
out of efforts that partnered UB’s Center for Educational
Collaboration, then led by Mara Huber, with the Western New York
community to help the Immaculate Heart Sisters of Africa improve
life in the village of Kitenga.

The organization supports education-centered, community-driven
initiatives in underserved rural areas, bringing resources,
expertise and thought partners to help communities realize the
vision they have for their future.

The project in Kitenga village included not only building the
school, but also working with the community to plan and raise money
for amenities such as a new road to the school and a guest
residence where trainers, researchers, volunteers and parents can
stay.

“In today’s world, traditional boundaries have
dissolved, and human rights issues that are not necessarily in our
own backyard are still our human rights issues,” says Anne
Wadsworth, executive director of GEC. “People here in Western
New York can make a real, tangible difference in the lives of these
girls living thousands of miles away.”

“The data is very compelling about how if we educated the
world’s girls, the global gross domestic product would go up
and poverty would go down,” Wadsworth adds. “Stability
increases, radicalization decreases, and the impact on the
environment is lessened due to the decline in population growth.
The entire world benefits from increased access to education for
girls.”